Whole Living magazine is working on its third annual Healthy Skin Awards, and asking readers to nominate their favs. Nominate your favs here by February 13 and you’ll be entered to win some spa prizes. [Whole Living]

BeautyBar.com and Allure have launched the Sample Society. $15 each month gets you 5 luxury samples, a $15 credit on BeautyBar.com and a mini Allure mag each month. Sign up here.

Ribbon hair ties are the new non-scrunchie and have basically replaced the traditional elastic. Aren’t these bright polka dot versions from Sephora so cute? I’m not a DIY-er, but this tutorial from the folks at Martha Stewart makes it look so simple. [How Lovely]

When I heard one of my favorite e-tailers went and opened a physical store I got excited. BeautyBar.com is one of my favorite sites to hop on over to from Soap.com, and now Wag.com (a.k.a my dog Betty’s favorite website). Shared cart on all of the above. Beauty Bar has such a luxurious group of brands – Jouer, By Terry, Clark’s Botanicals, Malin & Goetz and Deborah Lippman to name a few– so a retail location has got to have an equally posh atmosphere.

This is the part that is such a tease, because the Beauty Bar flagship store is located in Long Island. I think it would thrive in Chicago, so I’m sending vibes that we’re next. The flagship store is equipped with a Treatment Room where a licensed aesthetician is on-site and a Blow Dry Bar.

But for those of us shopping online, Beauty Bar is partnering with the FEED Foundation, whose mission is to end world-hunger, on a new referral program. For every new customer referred to the site, Beauty Bar will donate $5 to FEED.

I’m sharing my referral code with you (located on the “My Account” page), not because they’re compensating me to do so in any way, but because this is a cause I think is worth mentioning. As of 2011, the FEED Foundation, in partnership with FEED Projects, supplied 60 million nutritious school meals to children around the world. So if you’re looking for a new site to stock up on Clarisonic brush heads or more Dr. Dennis Gross Alpha Beta Face Peels, check out Beauty Bar. My referral code is LAUR211308.